After a lovely night at the Song Loft in Stony Stratford in late 2011, the club organisers extended an invitation to Rob and me to play support for the Tannahill Weavers at one of their 2012 concert nights. The chance to both return to the Song Loft and to team up again with the Tannahills, whom we had supported at Ely Folk Club the previous summer, was one we jumped at.
On a bitterly cold Friday night with the M1 more than a tad busy, early concerns of being late, stuck in traffic, abated and we arrived pretty much on time for a tune up and sound check at the Song Loft.
It was very nice to see the Soft Loft in its concert format. Most club evenings they meet in a lovely, cosy, upstairs room at the excellent Cock Hotel on Stony Stratford’s High Street. For concert evenings, they remain at the same venue but have access to a large ground floor function room at the back of the hotel, which is just right for concerts.
The Tannahills had kindly agreed to let us use their p.a. system but when we arrived in the room we felt we didn’t want to disturb their careful arrangements of equipment and, so, decided to play acoustically. There was enough space on the podium for us to do so, and it all worked very well.
The Song Loft and the Tannahills have pulling power and we ended up with an audience of c65 – 70, which was a nice size. We started the evening off with 30 minutes of material to showcase the variety of music we play. Having spent most of the day recording, we were well warmed up, especially on The Bite and Only For Three Months, and our performance seemed to go very well. The Tannahills were again on fine form with an excellent couple of sets of Scots music, songs and banter.
As was our experience the last time we visited the Song Loft, the club organisers were all very friendly and couldn’t do enough to help us out before, during and after the event. They said some lovely things to us and the audience about our music, and I am pleased to report that the craic, which we remarked upon in our blog entry after our first visit to the club, was undiminished by the move to the concert room. There are some very witty people at the Song Loft and we fervently hope that we will be invited back there soon. All best wishes to the Song Loft. Thanks Maurice, Brian, Jane and all your fellow committee members for looking after us so well!